THE GHOST DANCE AND WOUNDED KNEE

Some Indians sought solace in the Ghost Dance, a religious revitalization campaign reminiscent of the pan-Indian movements led by earlier prophets like Neolin and Tenskwatawa (discussed in Chapters 4 and 8). Its leaders foretold a day when whites disappear, the buffalo would return, and Indians could once again practice their ancestral customs “free from misery, death, and disease.” Large numbers of Indians gathered for days of singing, dancing, and religious observances. Fearing a general uprising, the government sent troops to the reservations. On December 29, 1890, soldiers opened fire on Ghost Dancers encamped near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, killing between 150 and 200 Indians, mostly women and children.

The Wounded Knee massacre marked the end of four centuries of armed conflict between the continent’s native population and European settlers and their descendants. By 1900, the Indian population had fallen to 250,000, the lowest point in American history. A children’s book about Indians published around this time stated flatly, “the Indian pictured in these pages no longer exists.” Yet despite everything, Indians survived, and in the twentieth century their numbers once again would begin to grow.

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